For the first time in a long time, I almost talked myself out of exercising at the weekend.
When I got up on Sunday morning, it was pouring with rain.
Not a shower.
Proper, heavy, Northern Ireland rain.
I checked the weather app on my phone.
It wasn’t going to stop.
So … I waited.
Maybe it’ll ease.
Maybe the forecast will be wrong.
I pottered around for a while.
Sent a couple of messages.
Checked outside again.
Still raining.
And I could feel what I was doing.
I was pushing it back … pushing it back.
Procrastinating.
Waiting for something outside of me to change before I did what I’d already decided to do.
Eventually, I stopped waiting.
Put my running gear on.
And went.
I ran 12km.
It rained heavily the entire run.
And about five minutes after I finished, soaking wet and feeling fantastic, I recorded a short video.
There was one thought particularly alive for me.
There can be a million miles between me thinking about doing something…
…and choosing to do it.
I’ve never exercised and regretted it afterwards.
Not once.
I’ve never finished a run or a training session and thought…
I really wish I hadn’t done that.
I’ve had plenty of occasions when I didn’t particularly feel like starting.
But that’s different.
And it may just be me, but sometimes I give far too much significance to how I feel before I do something.
Do I feel motivated?
Do I feel like it?
Is this the right time?
Would tomorrow be better?
Sometimes those are sensible questions.
And sometimes they’re just really good hiding places.
Sunday morning, I could have kept waiting.
There was always another reason.
The rain.
The forecast.
The fact that nobody was waiting for me.
The possibility that it might clear later.
None of those reasons was ridiculous.
But eventually there was a choice to make.
Am I going or not?
And something changed the moment I decided.
The rain hadn’t stopped.
The temperature hadn’t changed.
The forecast hadn’t improved.
I had.
I’d moved from thinking about running…
…to being someone who was going for a run.
That distinction interests me.
Because I don’t think it has much to do with running.
How many things in our lives do we spend enormous amounts of time thinking about doing?
Starting the thing.
Having the conversation.
Making the call.
Writing the proposal.
Changing something that isn’t working.
Committing to something we say matters to us.
We think.
We consider.
We analyse.
We wait until we feel more certain.
And sometimes we even convince ourselves that all that thinking is progress.
But thinking about choosing isn’t choosing.
How much energy do we waste renegotiating decisions we’ve already made?
I’d already decided I was going for a run that morning.
Then I saw the rain and started negotiating with myself.
There can be a million miles between the two.
Sunday morning also showed me something else.
Summer is pretty much over.
I live in Northern Ireland.
If I’m going to keep running through the next six months, there’s a very good chance I’m going to get wet.
A lot.
And considerably colder.
I can spend the winter hoping for better weather.
Or when I’ve decided to go for a run … I can just go for a run.
There’s something wonderfully simple about that.
The circumstances don’t have to change.
I get to choose.
And perhaps commitment isn’t something we feel before we act.
Perhaps commitment is simply doing what we said we’d do when the moment arrives to do it.
Sunday’s choice was only a run.
12 kilometres in the rain.
Nothing particularly special about that.
But I think life gives us these moments all the time.
Moments when we can keep thinking…
…or choose.
Sometimes the distance between the two is less than the time it takes to put on a pair of running shoes.
And sometimes…
…it’s a million miles.
Much love
Peter